Zyklon-B Cannister Label

Authors

Object ID

2015.2.13

Object Name

Label

Files

Description

Front: Tan paper with text in black, white and red. Includes skull and crossbones in upper left corner, a red shield with white design in lower left, and a black circular hand stamp on right edge. Zyklon B was a pesticide used in Nazi death camps to exterminate Jews through vaporizing pellets in shower chambers.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

A hydrogen cyanide product produced by Degesch, Zyklon-B had originally been used as a pesticide. By summer of 1941, the Nazis were experimenting with it on Soviet POWs, and discovered that the vaporizing pellets were an effective means of gassing Jews. Degesch was a subsidiary of I.G. Farben which, along with Tesch and Stabenow, profited by supplying the SS with Zyklon-B. By pouring the pellets through rooftop openings on the gas chambers, thus exposing them to air, a lethal gas was produced as an effective means to murder the victims. Nazis murdered more than one million Jews in gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. Bruno Tesch, who developed the form of this product for use in canisters, was executed after the war for advising the SS on Zyklon-B's use on humans.

Dimensions

4 1/2 x 6 3/4"

Keywords

Skull and crossbones, Nazi seal, stamp, hydrogen cyanide, Degesch, Zyklon B, I.G. Farben, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, Zyklon B Cannister, Bruno Tesch

Subcollection

Concentration

Recommended Citation

"Zyklon-B Cannister Label" (2015). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2015.2.13.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/137